


Cottonmouth

by Quieta



Category: Original Work
Genre: BDSM, Creampie, Crime Procedural, F/M, Hair-pulling, Horror, Impregnation, Knifeplay, Psychological Torture, Rape/Non-con Elements, Rough Sex, Serial Killers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-24 00:36:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14944317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quieta/pseuds/Quieta
Summary: Officer Anya Eadding is not having a good day. Not only has her boyfriend broken up with her, but the Wolf of Chattanooga has struck again—and the police department is no closer to finding him than they were at the beginning.However, as Anya is about to intimately learn, a bad situation is always in danger of getting worse.





	Cottonmouth

 

Anya had been on the site of a hit-and-run when she got the call. Some drunken teenager had hit a homeless man walking on the side of the street, and the man was lying prone on the curb, his crumpled form lined with smudged white chalk.

She unclipped her cell phone and answered. “Anya Eadding, Chattanooga Police Department.”

_“There’s been another one.”_

Her blood turned to ice. “How many?”

_“A whole family this time.”_

Hands shaking, she snapped her cellphone shut. “Sorry, Officer. I’ve got a call from Chattanooga. I’m needed there.”

The police officer looked up from where he was crouching at the dead man’s side. It had begun to rain, shielding the dark mountains around them with mist. “Not the Wolf of Chattanooga?”

She didn’t answer.

***

It was night by the time she got to the house. It was an unassuming little one-story home on a sleepy suburban street. Of course, the street was not sleepy anymore, but instead lined with police cars and curious neighbors craning their necks.

An officer was interviewing an old lady in her bathrobe on the sidewalk. “You said you heard nothing the whole night?”

The old woman’s face was wan in the light of the police cars, but strangely eager, as if she was living up her brief celebrity. “Not a peep. You know, Howie, my old German Shepherd, he’s twitchier n’ a rabbit, he howls if the mailman comes half an hour early. But he was quiet as a baby the whole night.  Just… I just don’t understand… who would do this to them? They were such a sweet family. Their son mowed my lawn…”

A policeman spotted her and waved her in. “In you go, Officer Eadding.”

 _S_ he ducked under the bright yellow CRIME SCENE tape and emerged into the comfy living room of a family home. The décor was tasteful and cozy, with overstuffed sofas and a dark, tasseled rug. It was meticulously untouched, from the china in the cubbies on the wall to the vases on the end tables. But as she checked the door, she noticed the lock was broken.

Another officer emerged from the next room, face green and gloved hands clenched over his mouth. As he left through the front door, she heard him retch. _Not good._

Sheriff Fabian Jenkins poked his head around the hallway corner. “There you are, Anya. I was wonderin’ what was taking you so long. You finished having a nice long gawk or are you ready to join me in the crime scene?”

The first thing Anya noticed was the smell. There really was no mistaking it. It was blood, half-dry, thick and heavy, like sea salt.

Her heels crunched on glass shards as she entered the bedroom. A framed photograph was lying face-down on the floor, glass spread out in a halo around it. Crime scene technicians were swarming the bodies, taking samples from the rug and measuring the blood spatters on the wall.

Sheriff Fabian Jenkins had a wispy, graying beard, suspenders, and more chins than a Chinese phonebook. All three hundred pounds of him was standing by the double-bed, hands in his overcoat pockets and sheriff’s hat tipped down over his eyes. “Take a look, Anya.”

There were four. Mother, father, son and daughter. They were picture-perfect in the framed oval picture above the bed, but underneath, in a grotesque mirror image, their bodies were slumping and disemboweled. The blood had soaked into the quilt, into the mattress, and dried in their hair and nightgowns. The mother’s arm was raised out of the side of the bed, as if she had been clawing for something, maybe a phone.

“Father was named Harold Gillicuddy. He was a manager at the welding plant. Mother was Janine, stay at home mom. Son had just started high school, and the daughter was in sixth grade.” Fabian shook his head. “He’s shaking up his M.O.”

“If he ever even had one in the first place.” Anya snapped on her white plastic gloves. She delicately tilted the wife’s head to the side, revealing the ragged edge of a knife gash. “It’s our Wolf, all right. Throat slit from ear to ear, disemboweled, and no witnesses left alive. He’s ramped up his depravity. He’s never taken a whole family before.”

***

The Wolf of Chattanooga’s first kill had been a local drifter come to town to sleep under the parked trains at the railyard. The first conductor on site had found him lying there under the train he had crawled under, eyes closed as if in sleep except for the seven-inch gash winding around his throat and the bare, glistening guts nestled close to his dirty body.

The police had chalked it up to a disagreement with another drifter and closed the case. Hobos got into spats and were some tough sons of guns, and this hadn’t been the first time it had happened.

Next it was a young couple hitchhiking the back roads. The man had ratty blond dreads and a _Metallica_ T-shirt, and the woman was young, with a buzz-cut and a nose piercing. They lay on a rural road, side by side with their heads resting against each other and blood pooling beneath their necks. Their intestines lay in a semicircle around them.

The police had nervously opened it as a murder investigation after that, but it really didn’t pick up steam until the fourth murder, the of a woman jogging home.

The Wolf had _really_ lost his temper on her, and her arms were sliced with self-defense injuries so deep they reached the bone, in addition to several knife wounds on her torso and her slit throat. Flies had already laid their eggs in her empty eye sockets by the time another jogger found her.

At first, it was incredulous to think about. A serial killer? In Chattanooga, Tennessee? But the bodies kept piling up and so did the evidence. At times it seemed like he was mocking them. Several dump sites had been found perilously close to the police station. One was right behind a donut shop police officers liked to frequent.

But the perpetrator had always stayed teasingly out of reach, dancing away whenever they thought they’d make a breakthrough. Security cameras were always down for one reason or another, DNA evidence pointed nowhere, and every employee had conveniently been on a smoke break when he dumped the bodies behind their shops. He was watching. He was waiting. He was taunting.

***

The woman’s throat had been cut so deep it nearly decapitated her. As Anya lifted the upper body, the head hung backwards on a few strings of tendon. “God damn. He sawed her neck down to the spinal cord. He must have been in a bad mood.”

“He did that to the jogger woman, too. Her throat was shredded. He doesn’t like women too much, it seems.”

“It’s always a woman, isn’t it? ‘Oh, my mother did this to me… my girlfriend did that to me’… and suddenly we have thirteen bodies piling up.”

“Some things never change.” Fabian lifted the corner of the quilt and studied the blood spatter. “He’s been busy while you were gone. He’s taken several people at once before, but a whole family?”

Anya laid the woman back down on the pillowcase. The woman’s glasses were crooked on her blood-stained face, and Anya instinctively righted them.

There was a blank space among the pictures hung on the wall. The Wolf, typical to his kind, liked to take trophies. The hitchhiker couple had been missing a headband from the woman. The jogger had been missing her engagement ring. And… this time, after surveying his handiwork and hearing the death gurgles of his victims, the Wolf had turned and selected a smiling picture of the family from the wall.

“What I don’t get is how he took out this whole family. You’d think Mom or Dad would have done something to take him down and fight back.”

“Fear is a potent thing,” said Anya. “When you’re opposite someone wielding a knife, or a gun—well, sometimes you’ll do anything to protect your family. And if it means doing whatever the guy with the knife says…”

“Well, it sure didn’t do much for them.” Jenkins nudged the bedstead with his boot. The mother’s intestines spilled over the side, against the neatly-tucked quilt.

Anya sat back on her haunches. “This isn’t good, Sheriff. He’s moving into homes now. This could mean a whole lot of new fatalities.”

“In any case, the press is going to have a field day with this. We need to find him, and quick.”

Anya stripped off her gloves. “I can’t see that happening anytime soon. He’s meticulous. Not a hair or drop of blood at any of his crime scenes. His victim profile is all fucked up, too. Most serial killers have a type they go for. Small children. Women who look a certain way. The Wolf of Chattanooga, though…” she took one last look at the bodies, all lined up right next to each other. The throats glistening pink and red, innards pulled out and spread over their legs. Parents each on one side and the children cuddled in the middle, right below the smiling family portrait.

“He's a serial killer without a victim profile, which in and of itself is an anomaly. Serial killers usually kill for sexual gratification; so obviously, they have a type of victim they prefer. But none of these people have anything to do with each other. None of these bodies show any signs of sexual assault. It's almost as if he's not doing it for sexual gratification. It's more like... he's just doing it to taunt us."

“Men, women, children, young and old, they’re all game for him. He’s damn peculiar in his sadism, that’s for sure.”

Anya's cell phone rang, and she unclipped it with a sigh. “Anya Eadding, Chattanooga Police Department."

_"Annie?"_

Anya gritted her teeth. She turned and pushed past another officer, heading for the front door. “Damian, I told you not to call me at this number! This is my work number!”

He spoke again, and there was a sob in his hoarse voice. _“Annie, I’m sorry. I just… I can’t do this anymore.”_

Anya’s heart stopped. She was on the doorstep now, and the fresh air of the outside seemed clammy. “What? What are you talking about?”

_“It’s just… we’ve barely talked for the last two months. I feel like I’m living with a stranger. It’s your job, it’s taking up too much of your time. Whenever I want to talk with you about it, you snap at me. I can’t do this anymore. I just can’t.”_

Tears were pricking her eyes. Anya looked around at the flashing lights of the freshly-arrived media and journalists. She ducked behind a hedge. “You can’t… I just…. It’s been this case, all right? It’s just the Wolf case. I’m sorry I haven’t been communicating. I’ll try and do better. I’ll—“

_“I asked you to quit your job. It’s ruining you. You’re never home and when you are, all you do is look at those awful crime scene photos. We haven’t slept in the same bed for a month. Please, Annie, we need to split up.”_

Anya furiously wiped her nose. “If you think I’m quitting my job for you, then there’s something wrong with you. Do you know how long I’ve worked to get a position like this? But what would you know? You work at a fucking liquor store!”

He was silent for a moment. _“Goodbye, Annie.”_

“Fine! Leave! Go back and live with your redneck relatives in that podunk piece of shit town of yours, Damian, that’s where you belong! But when I get home, I swear to god, I _swear_ every one of your things better be cleared out! Every single last one of your ashtrays, your magazines, your _stupid_ guitars! I don’t want any part of you in my life anymore! Get the _fuck_ out of my life if you want to leave so much!”

Anya snapped her phone closed and rested it under her chin, trying not to cry. She had known it was coming—known for weeks—but now that it was here, it tore her to shreds.

It felt disrespectful to her to cry over something so trivial when there was a murdered family in the house right behind her, but even so, the sobs kept rising up. She had been with Damian two years, and he wasn’t even _man_ enough to split up with her face to face. That was probably for the better, though—if he was across from her now, she would have shot him.

Anya wondered if that was how the Wolf got started. Maybe it really was his girlfriend. Did she break up with him and he slit her throat in a fury? Was it his mother, pushing him a step too far? Or even a father?

_I feel like we’re strangers living in the same house_

Anya wondered where the Wolf was right now, if he was in his own comfortable house, gleefully listening to the morning news of his latest work. Or was he crouching alone on some street corner, wrestling with himself and his compulsions? Did he regret what he was doing?

More than anything, she wished she understood the way his mind worked.

Anya pushed back into the fray of reporters and officers, flashing her badge even as they descended on her like a pack of vultures. “Police Department. Coming through.”

“Was it the Wolf of Chattanooga?”

“Can you comment on the latest killings?”

“How are the police planning on handling the case from now on?”

“Are you—“

***

Anya was used to going home to an empty house while her boyfriend worked night shifts at the liquor store, but knowing that her house was _truly_ empty this time was just another stomp on her aching heart.

True to Damian’s word, every item and piece of personal property of his had been removed. Their bedroom had only the slightest of Anya’s personal possessions, with his magazines, guitar stands and ashtrays completely gone. He had even taken her swimming team photograph from the table beside her bed, she noted bitterly. He couldn’t help grabbing one reminder of her, could he?

The walls were bare and white, stripped of his band posters. They imprinted themselves on her eyes, the impressions of the black squares of his posters lingering like stamps in her pupils.

Anya undressed, unstrapping her belt, undoing her pants and pulling her vest over her head. Without her police uniform and in just her underwear, she looked like just another piece of Chattanooga trailer trash. She did not look like a police officer, that much was true.

Anya was lean, with bony shoulders and dishwater-blonde hair long enough to reach her mid-back. Her face had fine bone structure, but wide-spaced eyes, like a catfish. On her lower back was a faded tattoo of two roses surrounding a skull—an embarrassing teenage mistake she often tried to conceal. Her first boyfriend had talked her into it, and broken up with her a week later.

Dressed in only her bra and panties, she went into her office, where her Bassett Hound slept in a dog bed in the corner. He looked up as she came in and wagged his white speckled tail _Thank God he didn’t take Rogie, at least._ Her office hadn’t been touched, maybe because she didn’t have any of Damien’s things here—he had always hated going into her office, he thought it was disturbing and disgusting and it gave him nightmares.

Gory crime scene photographs were pinned on the walls. All the victims of the Chattanooga Wolf, their throats slit and intestines piled up on their bellies like gory offerings to a pagan god. A woman lying on her side in a dumpster, half buried under trash. A man slumped against a tree stump, chin bunched up under his face even as thick red blood congealed on his t-shirt. A close-up of a belly slit from side to side, almost like a c-section save for the mounds of purple-veined guts pulled from the slash.

 _Wolves tear at the soft underbelly of the prey to get to the innards,_ she thought to herself. The colors of the photographs floated in front of her eyes, red and brown and pallid. The dirt sticking to the bloody necks, the neatly-sliced edge of the throat, the flies nestling into the open eye sockets.

 _Who are you?_ Anya wondered. _Why are you doing this?_

Anya wasn’t in the mood to cook, so she ordered a pizza—half vegetable, half meat—and gave Rogie the meat half. He ate part of it and fell asleep with his ears trailing in the tomato sauce. Her half of the pizza lay uneaten on the office table over a mountain of disorganized files. She paced in front of the photographs.

“You had to have been killing for a long time,” she spoke to the photos. “You don’t get this good without a few slip-ups. You came from here from somewhere else. Arizona maybe, or Wyoming. Somewhere with a lot of empty land where you can experiment and dump your bodies unseen.”

Anya saw the bodies when she closed her eyes. She wanted to be in his head, to know how he thought and felt. _Is it a compulsion? Or do you like doing it? Are your hands being forced by mental illness? Do you regret it, or do you vicariously relive it in your mind?_

So many questions and none were getting answered.

“Did your parents beat you? Were you abused? Was it a white picket fence or sleeping on the street? University degree, or did you never graduate high school?”

Anya sat down on her office chair. “I don’t think you have a doctor’s degree. You’ve had medical training, but these cuts are still too sloppy **.** You have rage issues, that’s clear. You don’t like it when your victims fight back. I’d sure to have a talk with you, clear up some misunderstandings.” She lit a cigarette. “I’m sure we’ll get that talk sooner or later, whether it’s from a prison cell or from your body on the autopsy table. You might be a wolf, but I’m the hunter. And I’ll find you one day.”

She pulled the chain on the lamp and plunged the room into darkness.

***

Anya was still wound up tighter than an alarm clock, so she put on a pair of jeans and went out to Big Reuben’s. Big Reuben’s was a local dive that she and Damian had often went to—but she didn’t want to think about that right now. She just wanted to forget.

Two years. Two years they had shared and he didn’t even have the _guts_ to say it to her face. Just collect his guitars and run back to his family in the bumfuck countryside.

_You try making money as an unemployed rock star wannabe, Damian, now that you’re not living off my paycheck. I hope the fucking Chattanooga Wolf finds you and slits your throat open._

It was happy hour at Big Reuben’s, and the drinks were flowing. She seated herself on a polished wood stool and motioned to the bartender, who slid a glass towards her.

“Hey, Anya! Where’s Damian?”

“He’s not around anymore. Give me a shot of bourbon.”

Anya drank and steamed. Beneath her anger was a welling sadness that whatever she and Damian had shared had been for nothing, and she would never see him smile or play guitar for her again.

The Wolf of Chattanooga would keep on killing, and they were no closer to finding him than they had been at the beginning. What was the point of it anymore? What was the point of anything?

“Do you mind if I sit here?” said a man’s voice. She barely glanced sideways. “Go ahead, partner.”

The stool scraped on the polished wooden floor as it was pulled out. “You look like you’ve had a bad day.”

“Tell me about it.” She gave a short laugh and looked over. A slim man with dark hair was sitting beside her. “Who are you? Don’t think I’ve seen you around here before.”

He extended a hand. He had a very soft voice, with a neutral accent. Definitely an out-of-towner. “James Gerhardt. I’m just passing through for a business conference. And you?”

She shook his hand. “Anya Eadding.”

“Anya. What a pretty name. Are you Russian?”

Anya was getting drunk and contentious. “Do I _sound_ Russian to you? I was born in Knoxville.” She sighed. “My grandmother was from Belarus. I was named after her.”

He made a sound of apology. “Pardon me. It’s not a name you come across too often.”

“Not like James, huh? My first boyfriend was a James,” she said. “He was a piece of shit, too, just like my latest boyfriend. You want something to drink? Barkeep!”

“I’ll have a virgin cranberry spritzer, thank you. I don’t drink.”

She studied him closely. He was well-dressed, it was true, in a dress shirt and tie that looked out-of-place for a dive bar like Big Reuben’s. Yet he sat and talked with an ease that surprised her, as if he had been here many times before.

His features seemed to occupy the area between plain and handsome—good-looking, but in a normal way. Nothing about him leaped out at her. He just looked like a regular businessman, with dark, wavy hair and black-rimmed glasses.

“Tell me about your bad day,” James said. She drained her glass and motioned for another one. “Where to start. Well, I got up way too early and Damian had already left to go jam with his band.”

“Damian?”

“My boyfriend. Well, not anymore. We broke up.” She rested her forehead in her hands, trying not to cry. “That fucker. I hate him so much. He didn’t even have the guts to do it face-to-face. I wish I never met him. Two years of my life I’m never getting back. Two whole years of him living off me, scot-free.”

Anya told James about the first day she met Damian, when he was playing in a local band. They had hit it off immediately and begun dating. He moved from his shared apartment into her house while looking for a records deal. She said she should have seen the warning signs earlier. Like her last boyfriend, he always had some excuse as to why he wouldn’t get a job. And even when he got one, it was a shitty one—night shifts at a liquor store for pennies.

“I don’t know why I keep going for bad boys. I need a man with a real job. A clean-cut, no funny business sort of guy. That’s the kind of boyfriend I need.”

James smiled slightly, almost bashfully. But he said nothing. James was a good listener. And handsome too. His hair was so thick and dark, she wanted to run her fingers through it.

The hours passed and bourbon flowed. She talked about how miserable her life had been since she joined the police force. How she had applied for the F.B.I and been rejected. How men came and went out of her life and she was stuck investigating blue collar crime and hit-and-runs.

Anya got drunker and drunker. She told him how her father left when she was eleven, and how her mother had cancer, which she was trying to cure with hippie woo. She talked about how her brother had three convictions for meth possession and was working at a pizza place and Anya was the only member of her family who ever did anything with her life, and how no one seemed to care. She talked about her ovarian cysts causing her pain, and how she had abandoned her only hobby, competitive swimming, just a month ago.

Finally he broke his sympathetic silence. “You said you’re a police officer?”

Anya wasn’t supposed to let it slip she was investigating the Wolf of Chattanooga, but she didn’t give a shit anymore. He was an out-of-towner anyway; there was no harm in telling him. “Yeah, I work at the Police Department. Got assigned to the Chattanooga Wolf task force and I’ve been on it ever since.”

Finally, she came to the subject that had been bothering her all day. “I just came back from a crime scene. The Wolf took out a whole family. I’ve got a news conference tomorrow, what am I supposed to tell them? That we’re no closer to cracking it since the beginning? That he’s going to keep killing and I can’t do _anything_ about it?” she felt like crying again. The vision of that family, lying side by side with their throats slit, kept rising up in her mind. “Fuck. Another bourbon, please!”

The mounted deer head in back of the room swam in front of her. The alcohol was making her tongue loose, and thoughts that she usually locked tightly inside her mind were coming up to her lips. “He’s a smart one, my Wolf. He takes risks, but they’re measured. Always slips into the shadows when we come for him.”

“Your Wolf?” James had taken off his glasses and was polishing them. It was strange how unmemorable his face was. She hadn’t thought it was possible to be so conventionally attractive, yet have his face flee from her mind whenever she looked away.

Anya winced. “Guess it sounds creepy to say it. But I’m obsessed. Who is he? Why does he do this? I’ve been hunting him for almost a year and I feel like I’m on a never-ending road. I keep putting one foot in front of the other but the asphalt never stops and the horizon stretches into infinity. He keeps dancing out of reach. How can he be so brazen and leave so little evidence? We’re no closer to catching him than we were at the start of the year. And unless he makes a slip-up, we never will. And the Wolf _never_ makes slip-ups.”

Anya felt a light touch on her arm. When she turned, James had leaned closer.

She could pick details more accurately now—roundish features, brown hair that tended dark, pink cupid’s bow lips—but what shut her up immediately were his eyes.

The whites of his eyes were visible all around his iris. Set in his generic face, his eyes were a black hole ringed by white. For a moment they made her heart skip.

“What do you think he’s like?” he murmured. He had a very soothing voice. “What kind of person is he?”

Anya blinked. “He’s… he’s a hunter. Not a doctor.” She closed her eyes, and the vivisected body on the autopsy table was there in her mind. “Some medical training, maybe first aid, just enough to know where to cut and find the organs. He’s angry, but methodical—always the throat, then for the belly. He’s careful, but he plays games. Dumping the bodies so close to the police station—that’s taking a chance. But it always works out. The roads are either deserted, or the cameras are being changed. And not a hair or skin cell left at any of the crime scenes. He’s so careful, so clean, so precise. And he always, always slips through our fingers.”

Her fingers clenched. “Why does he do it? _Why?_ None of these victims had anything to do with each other. Why go for these people, and play all these protracted games with Law Enforcement? Christ.”

Anya drank the rest of her bourbon. It was sour, like it had lost its taste. James was still sitting close, quiet, but she could feel his presence, like a shadow at her side.

“D’you know something? I want to meet him. I want to sit across from him, while he’s handcuffed to a table—and ask him _why._ I want to see his face. I want to hear his voice. I just—I need to know who he is.” She traced a pattern on the bar table with the water condensation of her glass. “I’ve been following him for so long. He’s been more of a presence in my life than my _fucking_ boyfriend. Hell, I’ve had more conversations with him in my head these last couple months than I’ve had with Damian.” She laughed bitterly.

He _hmm_ ed. “Sounds like you need a man who has his life together. Someone who knows how to communicate. Someone who knows how to listen to you.”

“Yeah, right. As if men like that exist. You know that old saying? Taken or gay.”

“I’ve been listening to you this whole time. Don’t I make a good listener?” he said, and her heart skipped again. She looked at him, _really_ looked at him, at his dark hair, the fairness of his skin and the curve of his strong jaw. And he was smiling too. He had a lovely smile. Secretive and sort of shy.

“You do,” she said. He shifted closer and slid his hand onto her knee. His fingertips skimmed her leg, brushing teasingly close to her inner thigh. Anya’s belly began to tighten.

He leaned closer, and stopped just an inch from her face. She could smell him, a heady scent like fresh pine. He really was lovely as long as she didn’t look directly into his eyes. “I can tell you’re a swimmer. You have lovely strong thighs.”

“Are you imagining them wrapped around your waist?” Anya was drunk and saucy and hadn’t been with a man for months. She leaned forward until their lips touched.

She felt him smile against her mouth. “Maybe.” And he kissed her.

The press of his lips against hers was hot and sweet and gentle; he didn’t force it, but let her push back and explore his tongue with her own. His dark hair tickled her face, and he sucked lightly on her tongue, sliding the surface against hers. His hand resting on her thigh was radiating heat. He gripped the back of her head securely, if a little forcefully, and pulled her back so the edge of the counter bit into her back.

 _Oh God,_ he was so good. She was suddenly aware that she had not been this close to a man in months. His body heat, the smell of his skin, his fingers so close to her—they made her nipples stiffen, the sensitive tips prickling the fabric of her tube top.

“Hey, you two. Get going and quite slobberin’ all over my bartop. We’re closing down.” The barkeep gave her a wink as he pushed her off the stool. “Take care _,_ Anya.”

“You too,” she laughed, and stumbled. James’ arm around her waist steadied her. “Come on,” she told him, pulling him. Her face was flushed and her breathing was coming in fast. “Let’s go to my house—” She was fumbling with her keys.”

“Anya, you can barely stand straight. I am not letting you drive. What if you get caught and lose that fancy police job of yours?” He gave her a squeeze. “Come on. We can go to my hotel room. It’s right around the corner.”

***

Anya’s mind was a mess by the time they got to the hotel. She barely noticed their surroundings as she kissed and grabbed him. His lips were so soft, and his hands were strong as they roved over her body, sliding under her shirt.

She was trying to pull his shirt off when he slid the key in, and she nearly fell inside. “James,” she said breathlessly. “Oh, god—“

He picked her up as easily, as if she had been a doll, and threw her on the bed. She sprawled over the mattress. His shirt was unbuttoned, his hair a mess when he pulled away. “I’ll be right back.”

“Don’t take long,” she breathed, her legs aching with the emptiness of a firm waist that was no longer there.

Anya lay there in silence, listening to him rustle around in the next room, probably searching for condoms.

The silence stretched on. Her blurry eyes focused. It was a strangely run-down room, especially considering he was a successful businessman. She could tell how cheap the hotel was, by the peeling wallpaper and dim lamplight. The faded blue carpet was scuffed. Otherwise it was in tip-top shape; in fact, oddly clean despite the dilapidation. The bed was nicely made, curtains dusted and clothes folded neatly above the lopsided dresser.

Something rattled on the metal headboard as she shifted. She craned her head up. There was a pair of handcuffs fastened around one of the slats. Anya scowled. He wasn’t a weirdo, was he? If he tried anything like that, she would push him off and leave.

He was taking an awful long time. Had he forgotten about her? She propped herself up on an elbow to peer across the room. There were some objects scattered on the bed table beside her, a framed photograph and something that glittered. She picked it up—a silver and diamond ring.

The first thing that hit her drunken mind was _How dare he. He’s married? That two-timing bastard, he thought he could keep it from me?_

It was a moment before the creeping realization finally hit her.

Her eyes slid from the ring to the picture. It was a family of four, smiling and holding each other. Picture-perfect, unlike the shadow and blood-streaked corpses that had greeted her at their house.

Her crop top bit into her skin. Cold sweat pooled where the cloth met her flesh.

 _There’s no way,_ some logical part of her mind thought. _There’s no way…_

The creak of a door alerted her. A straight figure, not tall but not short, stood in the door. At his side he gripped a foot-long bowie knife, glinting in the dim light of the lamp.

“Figured it out, have we?” James said, a hint of amusement beneath his tone.

Her police instincts came in first. Her hand went to the empty space at her waist, and she realized with a horrifying jolt _I don’t have my concealed carry with me._

“Sit back,” he said conversationally. He was smiling slightly as he advanced on her. “Put your arms above your head.”

Her knees knocked together as she pressed herself against the headboard and her arms went up to defend herself. But her eyes were fixed on the knife, and her legs felt like water.

His knee sunk into the mattress, and his voice dropped _“Put your arms above your head.”_

Mindlessly she did. He gripped her wrist, a hint of cold against her trembling flesh. His face was clear and bland, but presumptively victorious, as if he had caught an animal in his trap.

His knife glinted in the light as she held her arm above her head, elbows tensing and lungs heaving. Her drunken mind could barely realize this was happening. The light of the lamp, his red tie, the creases of his white dress shirt, they all swirled into a tornado of colors.

The handcuffs clicked together, and her arms were immobile. The side of the knife rested against her collarbone, cold and thin, like the point of an icicle.

“You’re the Wolf of Chattanooga,” she said. “You’re the killer. You’re the one we’ve been tracking for so long.”

He smiled again in that bland way. “Very good, _Anya.”_ His tongue curved around the word mockingly. “You said earlier this night you would like an opportunity to… ask him some questions. Well, here you are. Ask away.”

He sat back on the mattress, knees bent and knife still held at his side. She couldn’t keep her eyes off of it. It was large, a hunting knife used for cleaving through deer hide. Sparkly clean.

“You have some interesting skills,” she said. “I said I didn’t think you had a medical degree. Was I right?”

“You were indeed. Good job, Anya.” The condescension in his tone was palpable. "I was a medic in the military. No degree.”

“So you were in the military? Were you discharged?”

He was silent for a moment, and she could feel the temperature of the room dropping. His face had gone carefully slack again, but behind his glasses, his eyes were glaring daggers into her. 

Her twirling intoxicated mind did not want to acknowledge that she was in this position, but she hurried on. “My grandfather was in the military, too. Second World War, you know. He met my grandmother there.”

“Yes. Anna Smirnova? And John Eadding.”

Her throat froze. “How did you know that?”

James smiled again, like a scar creeping across his face. “I’ve been watching you, Anya. I’ve been watching you for a _long_ time.”

***

“It all started with my first crime, here in Chattanooga. A lovely city, isn’t it? Caged in by the mountains. So private. When I came here, I knew I would stay for a long time.”

The tip of the knife bore into the pale, flat bedsheet of the bed, digging a hole in the threadcount. “The first time I saw you, you were outside a crime scene. I was in the crowd, did you know that? You were just one of the many officers. The next time, I recognized you again. Blonde and frowning, keeping the crowd in. I watched you through the whole time, at each and every crime scene. I like to admire my handiwork, you know, so I always made sure to be there in the crowd when the police arrived. I saw you getting more harried, more distracted. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I could see me gnawing away at your mind.”

His other hand slid onto her chest and rested there, above the thin fabric of her crop top. “Eventually, whenever you thought of me, I thought of you, too. I feel like you _understand_ me, Anya. We’ve spent so much time wrapped up in each other, why wouldn’t you? What you said at the bar all but proved me right. I’m in your head just like you’re in mine.”

He was bent over her now, his legs on either side of her body, squeezing her. She could feel his heaviness weight down on her, pinning her to the bed. “You told me I was _your Wolf._ And I suppose that makes you my _little policewoman_. _”_

The unbearable, self-congratulatory smugness was seeping into his tone. It was so unlike the gentle shyness he had affected earlier. He was dropping his mask, and his face was slowly transforming to match it. Underneath his glasses his eyes had narrowed, and his lips were drawn in a vulpine smile.

Anya swallowed. His face was right above her, his breaths heaving against her chest. His glasses were slipping down the bridge of his nose. “Why these people, James? What did they do to you?”

“They were useless eaters, all of them.” His voice was dripping with contempt as he slid the knife under her crop top. Her backbone stiffened, breaths coming in high and close together. “That hobo underneath the railways was out of his mind on booze—he didn’t even react when I slit his throat. Do we need people like that in the world, sucking off the social system? Those hitchhikers were bumming a ride on the side of the road. When I let them get in, they smelled like pot. I slit the man’s throat first, just so his girlfriend would see. Then I slid my knife into her belly while she screamed.” The tip of the blade pressed down into her skin just a little, and she couldn’t restrain a whimper of fear.

One movement. One movement would be all it took, and that blade would slide under her ribcage.

He pulled the knife handle up until the fabric stretched and broke. She felt the back of her crop top tighten as the cloth ripped.

“What about the jogger?” her voice broke midway through her sentence, becoming panicked and shrill.

He smiled as he peeled the remains of her top away from her flesh. Cold air hit her nipples, and suddenly, she was topless.

“That whore was cheating on her fiancé. I saw him leave every day, and the minute he was gone she invited a useless druggie into her house to _fuck.”_ His voice turned into a hiss at the last word. “Her husband gave up so much for her, but what does she do? She runs around on him, taking advantage of his kindness to do whatever she pleases.”

His dark eyes flicked up to meet hers. “A little like your Damian, no?”

She screamed.

Almost as soon as she started, he slammed his hand down on her mouth. He did it with such force one of her front teeth erupted in pain. “Shut up. We’ve only just begun to get to know each other, and already you want to ruin it? Didn’t you say you wanted to know everything about me? Then why are you screaming?”

Anya stopped to heave in a breath, sucking air through his fingers. He removed his hand and adjusted his glasses.

“You’re going to kill me,” she whispered. “Now that you’ve told me all of this.”

He looked mildly bemused. “Well, I’m certainly not planning on letting you go any time soon. But what’s all this about killing? Didn’t I just say that you understood me? No. I’ve rented this room for a week, Anya, and we have a lot to talk about, and a lot to learn from each other. Don’t worry,” he added as she began to hyperventilate again. That feral, snakelike grin was on his face again. “You’ll be _very_ well taken care of. Who knows—maybe you’ll even learn to like it.”

***

Her nipple was trembling and stiff in the tepid air. The air conditioner started with a rattle, making her jump.

The edge of the blade went down to circle her areola, drawing patterns in the slick sheen of sweat over her skin. It was just the lightest of a cold touch, but it made goosebumps form over her breasts and shoulders.

He took the blade away and leaned down until his breath washed over her nipple. He gave it a long, wet lave, entwining the tip of his tongue around the small pink nub. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to ignore the shivers that spread over her as he sucked her nipple into his mouth.

The Wolf was on top of her, weighing her down, and she could feel his erection press into her thigh. “I’ve been wringing my cock dry thinking of you this past year. Of how you’d feel under me, surrounding me, if your skin would be hot or cold—“ he pressed another wet kiss to the nape of her neck. The frame of his glasses dug into her skin. “You’re so cold. I’ll warm you up quick.”

She squeezed her eyes shut as he unbuttoned his shirt. She could hear rustling of cloth as he wrestled it off, and then, to her utter dread and horror, the clink of his belt.

Anya used her index finger to probe around her handcuffs, looking for a weakness, but they met only solid steel. _Dear God. This isn’t happening._

He slid his hand under the waistband of her jeans, his long, cold fingers probing her sticky cunt. She was slicker than a rainstorm from earlier, and desperately wished she wasn’t so she didn’t have to hear the smirk in his tone.

“Well, well. I guess our little policewoman can’t stop herself from getting soaked, even though the big bad serial killer is right on top of her.” He nudged a thumb against her slit as his index finger hooked inside her body. “Remember: you were all for this just a few minutes ago, when I was just James to you. Just pretend I’m still James, and we’ll have a good time,” he laughed. “Or don’t. I think fear is a little more fetching on you.”

He yanked her jeans down below her knees, and then over her ankles. The musty, chill air touched her core like the tip of a knife. Rather appropriate, since the tip of his real knife was still lingering by her midriff.

The hot head of his cock was pressing insistently against her thigh as he tried to force her legs open with his knees. She writhed, the handcuffs clanking as she tried to twist out of his grip.

“Stop struggling. You know this is going to happen. Stop putting off the inevitable and _spread your legs_ before I shove my knife up there instead.” His voice was tense with annoyance.

Anya squeezed her eyes tighter so tears couldn’t escape. _Crying won’t serve you any purpose now, Anya._ With an enormous effort, she forced her body to still as he settled between her legs.

The head of his cock slid between her lower lips, parting them slowly, as if he were savoring the moment. She could hear him breathing shallowly, and wondered how long he had dreamed of doing this to her.

He slowly slid inside her, forcing her open. Every inch that disappeared into her body, every vein that pulsed against her lower walls made a soaring feeling erupt in her chest. It had been so long since she had a man, and even though he was he was a murderer, a maniac, and _rapist_ it still felt… it felt…

He was extremely long, and thick, and the tip nudged against the door to her womb as he sheathed himself fully inside. He let out a long, shuddering moan, and his cock twitched deep inside her. “You feel just as good as I expected. Even better, actually.”

Anya said nothing. She wished she were dead.

He gripped her chin and hissed in her ear, “I’m paying you a compliment. The least you could do is open your eyes and acknowledge it.”

She unwillingly cracked her eyes open. In the dim light of the lamp his dark hair haloed around his head, outlining him in gold and throwing his features into shadow. All she could see was his grim smile and slitted eyes. _He’s enjoying this,_ she thought _. He’s enjoying keeping me in fear. He’s enjoying violating me. He’s enjoying every second of this._

Unexpectedly, his hips surged forward. She stifled a squeak as he began a steady rhythm, his length burrowing into her soft passage. His hips ground against her, faster and faster, his breaths speeding up as he fucked her harder and harder. She wanted to scream—in fact, a scream was battering her lungs at that very moment—but the knife was lingering too close to her skin.

So she closed her eyes again and tried to steady her breathing, desperately pretending she was not being raped, pretending she was not with a serial killer, pretending she wasn’t in a cheap hotel room on the wrong side of Chattanooga where no one could hear her scream, and pretending that each thrust did not ignite waves of heat across her body.

Her desperate ignoring of her own body’s reactions disappeared abruptly when his finger found its way through her folds, seeking out the stiff nub of flesh that was begging to be caressed.

Her belly turned to water as he rubbed it. The rough pad of his finger crushed her into a shivering mess, and suddenly his thrusts seemed twice as hard, and twice as deep, and she felt every vein in his cock, the way they rubbed over her insides, and _oh—_

A shivery orgasm was rising up inside her, and every nerve was concentrated inside her cunt. The feeling was steeping, jolts making their way up her womb, and suddenly she was clenching down, accepting every inch of his delicious length as her body spiraled to climax—

“You look so pretty naked,” he said between breaths. His abdominal muscles tensed against her smooth stomach as he thrust back and forth, back and forth. “With my dick in you and your yellow hair all spread out over my pillow. Much prettier than that ill-fitting police uniform they make you wear. Why don’t you just quit being a police officer and we can get hitched? I’m sure there are a couple people who you wouldn’t mind see killed. Like maybe that boyfriend of yours… or the sheriff…”

In between gasps for air, she managed, “Go to hell, you monster. You belong on d-d-Death Row, not out here forcing your deranged fantasies on women like me!”

The knife was pulled back, to be sheathed up to its hilt on the mattress beside her head.

His face was a half inch from hers as he slammed the knife harder than he was slamming his cock into her. It tore through layers of foam and mattress coverings, just as easily as it would have torn through flesh.

“You have a lot of _nerve,”_ he said quietly as the sound of ripping fabric sounded in her ears, “To be so mouthy to me while I’m on top of you, _in_ you, with a knife in my hand. You know how easily I could shove this down your ungrateful throat, could you?”

His thrusts had increased erratically, and he suddenly flipped her around, until her arms were painfully twisted above her, and her legs were spread over his. She was on top of him, his strong arms caging her in.

His was shoving upward brutally now, not caring his cock tore her or jabbed inside. The tip bruised her tender pink canal, forcing its way deeper inside like a battering ram. The pleasure inside her had vanished, being replaced by fear and agony as his fingernails dug into her waist and her arms twisted around each other, bones creaking.

His breath spiraled over the tops of her breasts as he pressed his forehead onto her collarbone. As his thrusts increased in momentum, she felt his cock twitch inside her. “N-no…” she managed to squeak. “Don’t... not inside… Pull out, pull out! Please! _Please!_ I’m not on the pill, I stopped taking it a month ago!”

At the sound of her whimpered begging, a slow smile began to creep over his face. _“Good.”_

It took her barely a second to realize his words before he arched his hips and forced his cock so deep inside her she screamed. Something hot and thick burst against the opening to her womb, soaking into her.

They lay there, both taut as a ballerina dancer _en pointe,_ bodies molded together with each and every muscle trembling against each other. Then he gradually relaxed, letting his shoulders slump and his cock grow soft.

Anya let her head rest on his shoulder, his skin hot against her forehead. She felt a different kind of violation—the encroachment of her womb by a man she hated, the way a piece of him was slithering inside her, penetrating her in such an intimate way.

“Just think,” he whispered in her ear. His lips brushed teasingly against her earlobe, making her shudder. “Maybe if you’d have fucked your boyfriend more, you wouldn’t have to worry about getting knocked up with a serial killer's kid. For want of a nail the shoe was lost, hm, Anya?” he punctuated his words with a cruel laugh as he spidered his hand over her belly, clearly reveling in her pain and anguish.

She wanted to scream and beat him, but her wrists were aching and she couldn’t feel her fingers. All she could do was roll uselessly off him, the sheet fabric sticking to her sweaty back.

Anya watched blearily as he got up and pulled his shirt on. He bent down to the bedside until his big dark eyes were an inch from her.

“I’m taking a shower,” he said. “I can’t stand the feeling of filth, with all the sweat and bodily fluids all over my body. Filth is something I’ve always hated.”

She shifted, and something hot and wet began to trickle out of her body and run down her thigh.

“And after me, you can take a shower as well. Take it as an apology. I’m awfully sorry if I made you feel miserable. Let’s just talk it up to some dirty-talk, yes?” He pinched her cheek hard.

Anya yanked her chin out of his hand, jaw trembling. He laughed at her. As soon as the bathroom door snapped shut her mind went into overdrive.

_I need to get out of here. I need to get my hands free. I need to get out of here and call the police._

She looked up at the handcuffs that tethered her to the headboard. The chain was wound around a bar between the slats, and both her hands were cuffed on each side of the thin slat. However, nothing was tethering the handcuffs to the bed. She tilted her head back as far as it would go. Even with her upside-down vision spinning in circles from the booze, she could clearly see that if she managed to get the chain through the bar that tightly crossed the slat, then she would go free.

 _It’s like taking a keychain out of a set of keys,_ she thought. All she needed to do was force the handcuff chain through the small space between the two criss-crossing bars.

Anya curled her legs under her—a sharp jab of pain made its home between her legs. She backed up until her back was pressed against the cold bedstead, then slid her arms behind her head and up the bar. The slow sliding of metal against metal made a shudder run down her back.

The distant sound of the shower filled the silent room, the patter of raindrops on linoleum seems obscenely loud in her ears

The chain clanked to a stop between the two bars, and she forced her wrists upward, the muscles in her forearms tensing and her shoulders beginning to ache again. She forced them up as high and as hard as they would go, until she was sure she would dislocate her shoulder. The metal edges bit into her wrists, rubbing the skin until it was raw. _Please work. Please work. Please please please—_

Finally, with a sweeping feeling of relief, it passed the two bars with a clink, and she was able to yank it the rest of the way.

She rolled off the bed, gripping the sheet to wrap around her naked body. She tiptoed to the door, legs shaking, and closed her fingers around the doorknob.

The shower stopped.

A heavy thrill of panic hit her like a rabbit being chased by a dog, and she pulled it open and began running.

The hotel was derelict, the rug stained and plaster showing through on the wall. The rooms lining the hallway were dark and silent, with an occasional moan or laugh coming from behind them. She tried banging on a few, but no one answered except one man telling her to _fuck off._

Halfway down the hotel hallway she heard the door crash open.

In her mindless panic, the sheet got entangled around her ankles and she crashed to the ground. She half-crawled, half-ran until she smacked against the hotel wall and took a turn, her legs pumping and breaths coming in high, whistling gasps. She saw a door hanging halfway open and tore it open before barreling inside and slamming it behind her.

It was musty, dark and cramped. A linen closet. She sunk down onto the floor, pulling her legs up in front of her and clutching her sheet tightly around her body.

As the hotel went silent again she heard footsteps come down the hall, muffled by the carpet. The slowness and deliberateness of it left no doubt as to who it was.

Her chest was heaving, but she had to hold in her breath as the floorboards creaked. The footsteps softly approached, heel then foot, heel then foot, quiet as a panther stalking its prey.

She kept her eyes on the small sliver of light underneath the door. Her throat was stinging with dust particles, and she wanted to cough, but she dared not make a sound.

The footsteps came closer.

Her knees were knocking against each other, her head spinning from adrenaline and alcohol. Her throat burned and her eyes watered. _Please pass. For the love of god, just keep walking. Keep walking._

The footsteps came closer, closer, _thud, thud, thud,_ until a shadow passed in front of the door.

They stopped.

In a split second, Anya’s eyes trailed from the sheet wrapped around her body to the corner of it, which was caught in the doorjamb.

The doorknob turned with a slow click.

She erupted out of her hiding spot, kicking the door out with every ounce of strength in her strong swimmer’s legs. It burst out with a crash, smashing the Wolf’s body into the opposite wall, and she felt the impact with her foot as his solid body whiplashed backward.

Anya was running again, grabbing the edge of the corner to keep her balance as she swung herself to the next hall.

She spotted a blinking red EMERGENCY EXIT sign over a set of gray double doors and slammed through them, her shoulder screaming with pain where she used to force it open. As soon as the clammy air hit her skin her head began to spin again and her legs got a burst of energy.

Leaning into the wind, she let herself go, like she was swimming underwater. The wet asphalt thudded underneath her feet, and the wind whistled past her ears.

She saw humming neon lights in the distance, and pushed herself harder. Her sheet flapped behind her, and the air was cold on her naked, sweaty body. Soon she stumbled onto concrete.

Huge, gray behemoths of trucks were parked on the edges of what she soon realized was a gas station. A man in a cap and dirt-stained jeans was staring in shock at her from the side of the convenience store.

She walked over to him. After a few garbled, stumbling words later a few other men had left the store and the trucks to come over, looking worried.

Her sheet was trailing over the ground, becoming soaked with dirt and damp. She barely noticed that her breast was exposed as she tried to explain herself through her haze of alcohol and fuzzy thoughts.

The neon blinking lights swirled around her. The smell of oil and cheap fast food made her belly churn.

Halfway through she began to cry, not of her own volition. The men looked, yet not quite willing to touch her because of her because of her state of undress. One tried to speak, but she was stumbling and slurring over her words and wouldn’t let him interrupt.

“Excuse me?” said a familiar voice. Her heart began to turn to stone. “Are you all right, Anya?”

One of the men looked over her shoulder. “Do you know who this is?”

A hand slid over her shoulder, seeming gentle, but his grip was hard as iron. “This is my wife,” said the Wolf from behind her. She tried to tear herself away from his grasp, but stumbled.

One of the men scowled. “She said she needed the police, she _was_ the police, something to do with a serial killer—is she all right?”

“She’s—ahh, we had a bit of a—it’s embarrassing to say, but we had a few drinks and were engaged in some—bondage activities.” He indicated her trembling hands, still encased in handcuffs. “My wife doesn’t respond well to alcohol. I’m sorry, it’s a long story, and this is very awkward, especially for my wife—Anya, honey, cover up.” He pulled the sheet over her shoulder to cover her bare chest.

Anya was crying so hard she could barely get a word out. She stumbled away. “He’s—don’t let me anywhere _near him,_ don’t let me, he’s, dangerous! Killer—“

The smell, the stress, and the heaving of her body from the sobs made alcohol bubble up in her throat. She sat down and vomited.

The Wolf crouched next to her, holding her hair away from her face. “I’ll take her home. It’s fine. Our motel is only a few yards away.” He had a smile pulled up to the gumline, revealing straight white teeth.

She tried to speak again. “Call the police,” she mumbled, but the men were already starting to disperse. “CALL THE POLICE! PLEASE! DON’T LEAVE ME HERE!”

A few looked at her askance, but none stepped forward when he hefted her in his arms. The Wolf began walking back to the hotel—he was not a large man, but he carried her easily. Halfway back to the hotel she nodded off.

***

Anya only woke up when the warmth of the hotel room washed over her. Strands of her hair were caked with vomit, and her sheet was wet and soaked with grime.

“Why did you run away like that? You women are so _inconsistent_. One moment they want everything to do with you, the next they’re pushing you away and leaving.” She could hear the annoyance in his voice as he laid her on the bed. Her head knocked back onto the bare mattress.

“You’re insane,” she croaked. “And a murderer. And a rapist. Why the fuck would you think I’d just sit here and let you do whatever you want with me?”

“Oh, you’re bringing _that_ into it, now? Don’t pretend like you didn’t enjoy it. You were getting into it at the beginning, shoving your hips up and moaning. I bet you would have screwed me gladly if I hadn’t shown you who I am.”

She closed her eyes to make the world stop spinning. _Why are you so angry?_ She wondered. _You’re angry at everything. At women, at the world, at society. What made you this way?_

“Women like you,” he said. “Never choose the right man. You said as much to me in the bar. It’s always some unemployed rock star, and then you have the gall to whine about never finding a decent man with a career. Your father runs out on you, and then you grow up fucked up and chasing the worst kinds of men. I could tell by your tattoo you had daddy issues; it’s always the women with tramp stamps, isn’t it?”

“Don’t you dare talk to me about my father,” she hissed, forgetting herself. She propped herself up on her elbows. “He didn’t get along with my mother. You never knew him—”

“Well, if he left you when you were eleven, you couldn’t have really known him either, could you?”

She spat in his face, and he rewarded her with a slap so hard her head rung.

Blood dripped from her nose.

“This is a filthy, dishonest world we live in,” he snarled, “and I’m the only one capable of recognizing it. I’m doing this world a favor by taking out all the thieves, liars, and useless eaters. Why can’t you _understand?_ You said I was always in your thoughts—hell, you said I had more of a presence in your life than your boyfriend—but you won’t even expend the little bit of energy to just, _maybe,_ see it from my view.”

Anya struggled up and desperately lashed out one more time. Her strong thigh slammed forward, aiming for his crotch. But she was still woozy and her limbs were weak, so she hit his midriff instead, and he stumbled back a few steps, clutching his belly.

She rolled off the bed and tried to scramble for the door, but he gripped her by her long blonde hair and yanked her back.

“I have just about had it with you,” he spat in her ear, gripping her hair so tightly it tore her scalp. “You ungrateful little whore. I set this all up for you, answered your questions, even pleased you in bed, and you keep bitching and kicking and trying to hurt me. Do you want to be hurt? ‘Cause I sure as shit can hurt you.”

He yanked her backwards and sat down, forcing her onto his lap hard and slow. The chill of his belt buckle dug into her thigh. He undid his belt and spread his legs, forcing her own legs to spread over his. His cock was already hard and ready, and his chest was heaving with breaths.

“Do you want to know what I did when I killed that family?” he hissed in her ear. “Do you know what I did? I put a knife to the father’s throat, said that if they didn’t make a sound I wouldn’t kill him. The girl sobbed, just a little bit. So I slit his throat. Next was the mother. She made a little sound, just a little one—like a scream wanting to be let out. When I pushed her bleeding body onto the floor, the son whimpered, I barely heard him. But I did, so he was next. After that the girl just started wailing. Couldn’t take it anymore, I suppose. And that was the end of the Gillicuddy family.”

The crime scene wavered in her memory, the sweet faces of the children, their intestines ravaged and pulled out of their bodies.

The tip of the knife dug into the top of her sweaty, dirty thigh. There was dried blood near the hilt.

The top of his penis slid between the lips of her cunt, throbbing and pulsing as it rubbed against her. She looked down and saw it nestled between her thighs, the pink tip welling with some clear liquid. Her lower lips twitched against his length, becoming slick as they felt his heat and hardness.

He shifted his hips and the tip dug into her, parting her open and penetrating her halfway. If she looked down she could see it sink into her and slide out, with only the head buried inside her.

Her throat felt dry. “Why them? You said you only killed people who were a drain on society. What did the Gillicuddys do? Answer me, god damn it!”

He didn’t answer. His hips were moving rhythmically as he slid in and out of her at a languorous pace, arching his back as he withdrew. The feeling of him, hot and hard and pressed so close against her, his heartbeat thudding against her shoulder blades, made sick pleasure start to swim in her belly.

She could feel his warm breaths wash over the nape of her neck. Her ankle tightened around his leg as he gave a short, sharp thrust upward, driving himself up to the hilt.

“You know what I think, you crazy fucker?” Anya said. “I think you make excuses for what you’re doing, when you really just do it because you enjoy it. You’re a sadist. You love to hurt people. You’re not a victim of your own mind nor are you wracked with guilt about it. You’re just an evil, shitty person!”

Searing agony lanced through her leg, making her mind spasm with shock. When she looked down the blade of the knife was sinking into her leg, the metal piercing her skin and making rivulets of blood run down her thigh.

Her rib cage exploded with pain as he forced the blade another inch. His hips were still moving, but now it wasn’t about his cock in her, it was about the knife in her leg.

“You know something, Anya? I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want any more questions.”

***

Anya whipped her head back as hard as she could, and heard a satisfying crunch as it came into contact with his nose. The knife slid out of her leg as his arms went to his face, and she rolled to the side. She had been planning on using the edge of the bed to regain her balance and fleeing from there, but her wrists were still locked in handcuffs, and she crumpled onto her side. Then he was on top of her, his eyes flat and livid and blood pouring out of his nose.

Blood spattered on her face, and she closed her eyes reflexively—only for them to fly open when he pressed his lips against hers.

He kissed her hard, blood dripping down his face and onto hers until the coppery, heavy scent gagged her. She tasted it on the corner of her lips as he changed positions, sealing his lips onto her again and again.

Then he was inside her again, his weight pushing her down and leaning on her injured leg so hard she felt a scream bubbling up in her throat. All she could do was close her eyes and wait for it to be over. She thought she would be smelling blood and that strong, overwhelming pine scent for the rest of her life, should she be allowed to live it.

***

When he cuffed her to the bed again— latching one of the cuffs to the bedframe instead of hooking it around the headboard—she was so exhausted she spiraled into sleep immediately. The blood on her leg had congealed into a blackish mass by then, and he gave her no medical attention, just pulled the covers over both of them and hooked his arms around her.

She woke up once during the night and thought she was back home in her house, in her bed, and she spent a few minutes listening to him breathe before she realized he wasn’t Damian.

Terror crept over her for a few seconds, before she put her hand out and laid it flat over his face. In the dim light, she could barely pick out his features, and the ones she could pick out were so generic she could not memorize them. To look at him he was the epitome of nondescript. Pleasant-looking. Bland. A boy-next-door sort of face. To think someone who looked so ordinary could be capable of such evil was almost unbelievable.

The Wolf jerked his head away. “What are you doing?” He sounded annoyed. “Go back to sleep.”

“I had a nightmare,” she said. _You’re the nightmare._

***

Dim sunlight peered through the blinds. Anya blinked sleepily, then turned to her side—she tried to yawn, but there was something covering her mouth. She reached up and her fingers found something slippery and smooth.

Anya tried to sit up, only for crippling pain to lance through her leg. Wincing, she looked down the covers at the gash in her thigh, the memories tumbling back like an avalanche. She kicked off the blankets with her other leg and looked around wildly before realizing she was alone.

The room was the color of queasy cheese. Slats of light shone on the musty rug, filtering in through the blinds. The trophies were still proudly displayed on the side table—the family at her from the photograph were watching her through their smiles, their eyes accusatory. _You’re a policewoman, Anya. And you still let him walk all over you._

It was quiet and dark. Anya was alone in the room. She could hear trucks and cars zoom past outside her window.

Had he left her here?

If he had, it probably wasn’t for long. Her fight-or-flight instinct hit her gut. She began to struggle. Anya needed to scream for help, but there was something covering her mouth. She used her free hand to try and yank it off, but it was several layers of duct tape wound tightly around her head, and she soon abandoned her efforts.

There were holes in the mattress from when it had been shredded from his knife. They were large enough for her to fit four fingers in. His knife itself was nowhere to be found.

Anya turned her attention to her handcuffs. They had been her key to freedom last time. They were firmly locked onto the bedframe, and the bedframe was firmly locked to the floor, probably to prevent the lowlifes that populated the hotel from stealing it.

The creeping realization that she was _stuck here_ was firmly pushed away by her mind. She was in a motel, alone in a room, surely she would be able to attract attention.

Anya tried the duct tape again. No luck. She took the picture frame from the table and dug it between her cheek and the duct tape. It accomplished nothing but bruising her skin.

She examined the handcuffs. She slid them down the frame, looking for a break in the wood, but found none. The cuffs were old and rusty, but strong. She needed something long and thin to pick it.

The rug was rough as sheep wool as she rolled over and thudded onto the ground. Pain spread through not only her leg, but pierced deep inside her. The Wolf must have raped her several times during the night. A hot drop of cum trickling onto her thigh confirmed it.

She did a once-over of the room. There had to be something she could use. One of the loose nails on the opposing wall seemed like the best bet. She edged closer until her arm was stretched to its limit and her other was extended, fingertips an inch away from the loose nail.

Anya closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She reached hard. The steel dug into her wrist, chafing and reddening her skin. She ignored the pain and reached harder. The black stub of the nail was a centimeter from her fingertips. One of her false nails had come off, but she reached with her other ones, and was able to lightly brush the tip of the nail.

Her skin began to bruise. And her arm muscles began to fail her

 _If I can’t do this,_ she suddenly realized, _I’m going to die here._

She remembered a Jane Doe she had found on the side of a highway. It had been an early, cold spring morning with the mist lying heavy over the mountains. The couple that had dialed 911 stood to the side of the road, crying and comforting each other, as if the discovery had been some horrendously tragic occurrence for them. Anya had been the first officer on the scene, and she was the first one to check the body, as she had so many times before. Anya was the one to escort her to morgue, and Anya was one of the few who was at her funeral.

The woman—no, girl—had been no older than seventeen. Fresh and beautiful with youth, but with the hard edge to her face and track marks on her arms that suggested a life that had been less than kind to her. Her red hair had been spread over the green grass on the side of the highway, eyes open and filmy, staring at the rising sun, the last she would ever see.

The girl had stopped breathing hours before they found her. They never found out who she was.

She was buried in Chattanooga Memorial Park under the name Jane Doe. She was someone’s daughter, someone’s loved one, and all her life had amounted to was a body on the side of the road and an anonymous grave.

Anya wondered when the Wolf would get tired of her. She wondered what people would think of her body when it was found. Pink eyeshadow, painted nails and a tramp stamp. Just some hooker who found herself on the bad side of a trick.

And if the Wolf didn’t get tired of her? He had indicated interest in impregnating her. She saw herself giving birth alone, in some isolated place, to fulfill the sick fantasies of an insane man.

She reached as hard and long as she possibly could, her arm muscles stretched and screaming with pain as if they would be ripped right out of the socket, the edge of the metal digging so deep into her flesh it broke the skin, and her nails _just_ hooked around the nail to—

The chain of the handcuff snapped.

Anya fell face-down on the rug. The sudden force had propelled her forward, banging her nose on the floor. She lay there for a few moments, stunned, before pulling herself up and looking at the bed.

The cuff still hung loosely on the bed, broken chain swinging.

It was quiet inside the hotel room.

Anya felt like she was a thousand miles away. She felt as if she would blink and she would still be chained to that bed, realizing she would never leave.

Dreamily, she stood up and grabbed the sheet from the bed, pulling it around her in a makeshift cloak. She tried the door fruitlessly, pulling at the handle until she realized she needed to unlock it.

The hallway seemed brighter, more visceral, in the daylight. The generic hallway paintings held so much life. The carpet leaped out at her like a confusing mess of Picasso-esque patterns.

There was an older woman with dyed blonde hair and cracked eyeshadow smoking a cigarette at the end of the hallway. She looked at Anya with wide bewildered eyes as she limped past, covered only by duct tape and a sheet.

Halfway across the block she remembered the duct tape, and tore her face to shreds ripping it off. Leaving it on a street corner, she stumbled onto a highway.

She was half a mile down before anyone called the police.

***

The confusing mess of sirens and paramedics barely registered to her, but the voice of Fabian Jenkins, her boss and long-time friend, did.

“Jesus tap-dancing Christ, Anya. What _happened_ to you?”

Anya came to in the police office. She was seated, wearing leftover clothes belonging to the police station. She had no memory of putting them on. Her leg was bandaged, and she didn’t remember that either.

She was in a familiar room, where she had often questioned witnesses and victims. Except now the tables were turned, and it was her who was sitting opposite Fabian.

“It was him,” Anya said calmly. She did not feel angry, or hurt, or scared. In fact, she felt like her mind was drifting above her body. “It was the Wolf.”

Fabian was quiet for a moment. Then he spoke—and the horror and disbelief were battling it out in his voice. “The Wolf of Chattanooga did this to you?”

“Yes,” she said. “I met him at a bar. I had a couple drinks. We went to his hotel, and he told me who he was. Then he cuffed me to his bed and… did things to me. I woke up this morning and broke free. And… I can’t really remember much of what happened after.”

Fabian put his hands on her shoulders, and she flinched involuntarily. “Anya. You’re in shock. I’m going to get you to a psychologist. But just tell me where the hotel is and I can—“

“He’s long gone by now, Fabian. He probably came back soon after I escaped, realized I was gone, and bolted. Hell, he could be in a different state by now.”

“Anya—“

“I’ll be fine. It was that 24-hour motel by Big Reuben’s, I can’t remember its name.” Anya rubbed her arms, but her touch felt like nothing. “I can’t remember the room number either. But if you ask the receptionist for a James Gerhardt, then she’ll tell you the room number.”

Fabian stood up wordlessly and pulled a phone from the wall. Anya did not hear his words, but his voice was harsh, and it hurt her ears. When he hung up and came back to her, his voice was gentler. “I have officers and crime scene techs heading there right now. You mentioned a name. James Gerhardt. Was that his—was that the Wolf’s name?”

Anya shrugged wearily. “Probably not. Probably just an alias. He’s pretty smart, and he would know better than to use his birth name in his killing city. Can’t help but check, though.”

Fabian went silent, and she heard a rustling. When she looked up, the man had taken off his sheriff’s hat and was looking right at her.

“Anya,” he said to her. He looked desperately like he wanted to touch her, to comfort her, but with how she had reacted before, he was holding off.   **“** We did a rape kit. We took scrapings from under your nails. _We have his DNA profile,_ Anya. If we can link it to—“

He realized she wasn’t listening, and went quiet again. The silence stretched on. Anya looked at her nails. They were white at the tips, like she hadn’t clipped them in a while. She rubbed her index nail against her thumbnail, feeling them rasp together and watching the polish flake off. When Fabian spoke again, he had to repeat his sentence twice.

“Do you remember what he looked like? Anya.”

She closed her eyes. Her mind went back to the night at the bar, and his feral smile, and the way the light glinted off his glasses, and the feeling of a blade sliding into her skin.

“He—“ she said, and stopped. “He was—“

She tried to remember his face, _really_ tried to remember it. “He had dark hair. And he had glasses.”

Fabian waited for her to go on, but she opened her eyes. “That’s all I remember, Fabian.”

“Was he old or young?”

“Young. He looked about my age. I think—I think he said he had been in the military, he had done first aid or something, so maybe check military records.”

“Can you remember anything else? Anything he might have said? Something, anything that would give a hint to his identity?”

The surface of the table was worn and splotched with coffee stains. Anya had often complained to Fabian that she wanted it replaced. One of the stains looked remarkably like a donkey.

“Nothing.”

“Okay. I’m calling every police station in all our surrounding counties. We’re getting road blocks put up. Anya, we’re going to catch the Wolf of Chattanooga, I swear to Christ—“

“Wolf.” She wanted to laugh and didn’t know why. “He’s no wolf. You _notice_ wolves. Wolves chase you, wolves with their yellow eyes, you can see them coming, you can hear them howl. No, he’s not a wolf. He’s too subtle to be a wolf. Too plain. Too unnoticeable. He blends into the shadows.”

“Anya, we need to get you to the hospital.”

“You know, when my dad was still around, he used to take me and my brother to a local pond so we could fish and swim. We’d always have to watch out for the cottonmouths, though. They’d be lurking in the reeds, or in the mud at the bottom of the lake. They’d blend right in with the muddy water, all streaked with brown. You’d never see them until they bit you. And that’s what _he_ is. He’s a cottonmouth. He’s so plain, so unremarkable, you never suspect him until he strikes. I certainly never did.”

Fabian gently pulled her up. “Anya, you need to come to the hospital. You need a morning-after pill.”

He led her out a side door to where Fabian’s police cruiser was waiting for her. “And afterwards, your mother wants to see you. And there are journalists—“

“Already? Man, fuck journalists. It’s been barely a couple hours.”

“Anya, it’s been the whole day—“

“You know what General Sherman used to say about journalists? ‘I would kill them all, but I am sure we would be getting reports from hell before breakfast’. My dad would quote that at me all the time when he read the paper. Haha—“

“Anya, please don’t—“

The heavy, dark weight of what had happened to her was tilting, it was threatening to overwhelm her, and her legs felt like water, they started to tremble.

Fabian caught her in an enormous bear hug, squeezing the breath out of her, and this time she did not flinch away, but buried her face in his shoulder and began to heave her sobs out. One after another, she screamed herself hoarse, tears soaking into the cotton of his overcoat as he supported her.

She looked over his shoulder. The mountains loomed in the distance, huge and blotting out the star-strewn night. They shadowed Chattanooga like cloaked figures.

Anya knew that he was out there somewhere, staring back.

***

The road was bumpy under his tires, but the loud blasted rock music drowned it out. Damian hung one arm out the window, trying to focus on the music and nothing else. Beneath the loud lyrics he could hear the gentle _swish-swish_ of the windshield wipers.

He should have never taken Annie’s photograph with him. It sat there on his dashboard, her sweet face smiling at him from her team of fellow swimmers. He wished he could have tossed it out the window.

Fuck, he shouldn’t have done it. That voice bitched at him the whole time he was packing, the whole time he was driving. _What the hell is wrong with you, Damian? Why the hell are you dropping Annie just because of some pothole in your relationship? Deal with it like a man._ But his band had broken up, and Anya had stopped talking to him months ago, and it seemed so easy to just to abandon his failed city life and run back home to Mom and Dad.

The mountain road was rocky, and the sound of tires on uneven ground was a distant rumble in his ears. All he could see was the light mist of rain, and the headlights illuminating the gray road in front of him, and the dark pine branches dipping in front of his car.

 _Jesus, just don’t think of her._ He needed to get home first.

Damian took a turn and spotted something out of the corner of his eye—in the road in front of him was the front end of what looked like a car, its hood lifted, with a dark figure in front of it.

He obligingly slowed down. “Hey, you need a lift?” he called out the window. The figure—a man wearing a suit—turned.

“I wouldn’t mind,” the man called over to him. “My car broke down.”

“Get in.”

The man who got in was short and slim, with dark hair and darker-rimmed glasses. Under his glasses his face was unmemorable—the sort of face you’d see on a lawyer’s billboard or a stock photo.

“Where you headed?” asked Damian as he hit the gas.

“Next state over, but I’d be appreciative if you just dropped me off at the next town.”

“I’m headed to Ocoee, but that’s pretty near Georgia. You could probably call someone there and get your car fixed up.”

The man answered with a nod and a smile. They drove on for a few minutes, Damian squinting against the rain and the man beside him silent. He seemed congenial, but rather quiet.

“So, where you from?” Damian asked over the rain and music. The man didn’t answer. He was staring the photograph on the dashboard.

“That’s my girlfriend’s swim team,” Damian said. “Well, _ex-_ girlfriend now.”

“Which one is your girlfriend?”

“That gal on the end with her feet in the water. The smiling one.”

The man, for the first time, turned and put his full attention on Damian. His glasses were speckled with rain, and under them, Damian could see how dark his eyes were, and how the whites showed right through the frames.

Damian could still hear his low voice through the rain and loud music. “You’re a lucky man. You shouldn’t have left.”

“Thanks, dude. Well, it just didn’t work out. She’ll find someone better for her.”

The song had faded out, and for a moment the only sound in the car was the torrential downpour.

“Sorry, I never got your name,” said Damian, switching the windshield wipers faster. The rain was falling in sheets now, making it hard to see. “What was it?”

“Robert. Robert Cushman.”

“Cool. My name’s—“

“Damian,” said the man. “Yes, I know.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I thought I'd try my hand at writing a one-shot! It's certainly easier than writing a multichapter story. I'm happy with how it turned out, anyway--keeping the atmosphere tense was hard but I liked leaving it open-ended.  
> EDIT: Reworked a paragraph because I fucked up and forgot what a disorganized killer was  
> EDIT EDIT: You all need to read Incandivory's amazing analysis of the killer in the comment section. Seriously.


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